


Seven steps to heaven (but that stairway's just too steep)

by Thunderhel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of hard drug use, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 14:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20098690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderhel/pseuds/Thunderhel
Summary: Despite Larissa's previous assessment of her sobriety she felt like she was out of body for a moment, though she doubted it had much to do with the weed. She saw herself, five years from now, ten years from now, looking back on the night that she partied with the Stanley Cup winning team. In that moment she realized she didn’t want to look back and say she had had a panic attack about her nebulous future on the back deck and went home half way to stoned.She wanted to look back and say she did something ridiculously stupid.





	Seven steps to heaven (but that stairway's just too steep)

**Author's Note:**

> a shoutout to the anon who requested: "could you maybe write something with Snowy/anyone? I feel like the Falcs goalie needs a little more love..." As much as I love Snowy/Tater I am already working on another fic for them so I decided to go with another of my favorite characters, Lardo! 
> 
> <s>This fic is probably too short to deserve its title but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯</s>

Jack’s balcony, much like the rest of Jack’s apartment, reeked of a paycheck with several zeroes, and a man who had no idea what to do with it. It wasn’t a huge space, just enough for a few chairs that had obviously been picked out by Bitty, and a plant that looked like it hadn’t been watered in a few days. But any sort of balcony was an extravagance in the city, and Larissa had never been more grateful for Jack’s tendency to throw around money as she was in that moment. 

The party was fun, they always were at Jack’s, but this was on another level entirely. Because the Falconers had just won the Stanley Cup and Larissa had lost track of what hour of nonstop celebration they were on. Behind the sliding glass door at least a quarter of the team was partying along side half of the SMH and four years of Kegsters had prepared her for this in theory, but maybe not in actual practice. It was one thing to party like the world was ending when she knew for fact that her world would definitely be there tomorrow. But graduation had been only a few weeks ago and with no plan in mind for what the future held, the 'world is ending' part of the sentiment felt a little too real for her to fully indulge. With a heavy sigh she collapsed into a deck chair, delighted to find that it was a plush as everything else Bitty picked out as she stared out over the Providence skyline. 

“You good?”

Larissa didn’t startle, had trained that instinct out of her after living with and around hockey boys and their tendency to explode in their excitement with little to no warning. She couldn’t do anything about her heartbeat jumping into her throat in surprise and panic. She thought she had been alone. 

“I’m fine,” she said on instinct rather than putting any actual thought into. She turned her head, hoping against all hope it was a member of her team, and felt her breath catch in her throat just below her heart as she realized who her company was.

Dustin “Snowy” Snow, starting goalie for the 2016 Stanley Cup Champions, was laying on the deck chair beside her. 

Suddenly she was hyper aware of the where her hair was coming loose from the ponytail she had put it in and the edge of her skirt riding up and thanked every deity she could think of that she had worn bike shorts underneath. She gripped the edges of the cushion beneath her and refused to adjust either of those things. 

Mr. Snow looked like he had been through much worse than her anyway. His hair was sticking up in odd angles beneath the edges of his crooked Snapback and his jeans had a tear in the knee that she was certain they hadn’t earlier. And-

“Where’s your shirt?” 

Snowy glanced away from her, down to his own bare chest as if he was analyzing the situation. “I honestly I have no fucking idea.” 

She laughed, trying exhale the shaky feeling of nerves trying to creep up on her. She had hung out with Jack for years, and she was friends with Tater. Snowy should have been the next step in the ladder of NHL friendships she made. 

But while Tater had made her nervous, the knowledge of his fame and of who he was heavy in the back of her mind as she had played him in beer pong, it had been different. She tried to pull her eyes up from where they had drifted down to Snowy's pecs. His eyes didn’t feel like a much safer option. 

“I would offer you mine, but I think you’d stretch it out,” she finally managed to joke, leaning back against the chair and offering him what she hoped was a normal human smile. She was always hoping that and was never sure of where she landed. 

She counted it a victory when he tilted his head back, closing his eyes and grinning. “You’re very kind to think of it anyway.” 

Larissa shifted back against the chair, pushing her face into the cushion as she looked over at him. She hadn’t had a problem making friends with hockey bros since her freshman year, just because he made more money in a year than she would see in a decade and just because she had torn out his picture in the ESPN body issue to save was no reason to get flustered. 

“What are you doing out here, shouldn’t you be inside, I don’t know, hooking up with puck bunnies and drinking yourself half to death?” 

Snowy hummed before reaching into his pocket, producing a small plastic bag and a lighter. “Came out to smoke. You want some? If it bugs you I don’t have to, no worries.”

“No, it’s fine. You always keep your joints in a baggie in your pocket?” 

Snowy snorted. “I would have rolled it here but everyone’s such a fucking prude. The half of the team that’s not here is doing lines off of prostitutes but here _I’m_ the degenerate for smoking a blunt.” 

“Why aren’t you with the other half of the team then?” 

The baggie crinkled as he removed it's contents. He rolled his head to the side to look at her and cocked an eyebrow. “Why? You think I’m the doing lines off of prostitutes type?” 

She shrugged. “Yeah kind of.” 

Snowy was laughing again as he lit the end of the joint. “Rude.”

“You don’t even know my name,” she challenged back, feeling slightly better about the possibility of getting high to take the edge of off what had been stirring under her skin even before she stepped out onto the balcony. She could hear the party happening inside, but it sounded miles away behind the glass door. “If either of us is rude it’s you.”

Snowy took a deep hit, narrowing his eyes at her. “Rude of you to assume, because I do know your name.” He pointed at her with the joint. “It’s Larissa.” His grin was wide and his hat was slipping down over his face as he gave her a wink.

The night air was at least 10 degrees cooler than the party inside and there was no reason for her face to feel suddenly so much hotter. “Yes, it is. No one calls me that here, but technically you’re right.”

“Yeah, you got me because I don’t remember your nickname. I know it starts with an L, and it was really rude and I didn’t want to roll the dice and guess.”

“Lardo,” she told him. It had been years since she had been given the name and she had never felt embarrassed about it. 

“Lardo,” he repeated. The disbelief in his voice was enough to make her laugh. “What the fuck did you to and to who to end up with that fucking name?” 

“It was a term of endearment.”

“It is not, someone fucking hated you.” 

“Well we can’t all be Snowy. Incredibly original really.” She took the joint when he offered. She inhaled deep and held onto the breath for as long as she could before letting the smoke curl up in front of her. She may or may not have been trying to show off, but looking to see if he was watching would have ruined the point. 

Beside her she heard Snowy scoff, the sound deep and low in quiet of the night. “I’ve had every fucking name related to Snow. No one is original. I’ve been Snowman, Snowflake, Snowangel, Snowstorm, Blizzard, Iceman, Frosty, Snowball, Jack Frost, you fucking name it, I’ve been it. As long as they don’t call me fucking Dusty I’m fine.” 

Larissa snorted. “I’m so sorry your parents did that to you.”

“I’m so sorry you’re parents gave you such a hot name and you let a bunch of frat bros call you goddamn Lardo.” 

Inside someone was shouting, and Larissa wasn’t sure if it was Holster or Tater, too muffled through the glass. She turned on her side to look at him better, and found him in almost the same position. His smile was lopsided, and she didn’t know if that was natural or not.

“How is a name hot?” She asked as she passed the joint back. 

Snowy shrugged, taking a hit and considering the questions before he exhaled. “I don’t know. It just sounds like the name of girl that’s absolutely cooler than you, no matter who the ‘you’ in question is. Dustin sounds like...the manager of a Staples.”

Larissa laughed, the sound carrying off the edge of the balcony and making her feel off center. “Dustin sounds like, the hot farm hand that works for your dad and keeps chopping wood shirtless for some reason even though he’s probably getting like...a million splinters for it. Not that my dad knows shit about farming, but like, in theory.” 

“I have never chopped wood shirtless, at least, not that I remember?”

It wasn’t particularly funny, neither of them really were, but Larissa couldn’t stop the giggling fit she had abruptly fallen into. “You seem like the type,” she accused between what were definitely unattractive snorts, but found herself unable to care. It was too fast for the drugs to be having that strong of an effect, but she was tired and stressed and as long as she had a joint in her hand she could blame anything at all she wanted to on it. 

“Fuck you, you’re just saying that because my shirt is off and you’re distracted.” 

“By what?” She challenged, raising an eyebrow as she looked him up and down and pretended to find him lacking. She could feel the beginnings of the weed taking hold in her limbs, in her nerves and in her throat and sitting with Snowy didn’t feel nearly as intimidating as it had a moment ago. 

“Fuck off,” he told her, his tone light and distracted as he suddenly turned away. Holding out the joint to her to take again as he searched for something “Oh shit I forgot.”

She made a noise she hoped was relevant to the conversation as she watched the lines of his stomach that appeared as he twisted. He was thinner than some of the other guys, but broad in the shoulders and his abs were clear enough that he looked like a drawing of a man instead of a living breathing human. 

When he turned back he had produced a phone from the pocket of his jeans. “This has nothing to do with shit, but I wanted to show you earlier and forgot.” 

Lardo frowned as she blew out another puff. “Wait, show me?” 

Snowy nodded, brow drawn in concentration as he scrolled. “Yeah. Oh, here.” 

Confused, she leaned forward as he held out his phone, narrowing her eyes at the screen. It was an Instagram account, and it looked to be mostly full of brightly colored paintings, splattered across not just canvases but walls and cars, and what looked like a tattoo or two. She didn’t remember deciding to take the phone but suddenly she was holding it, scrolling down the feed. Her mind was fuzzy and the art was sharp and colorful, and interspersed between it was a very pretty girl with dark hair and bright lipstick or varying shades. 

“That’s my friend, Olivia,” Snowy told her after a minute. At some point he had taken the joint back, barely anything left of it between them. “She’s sort of well known around Providence. I like art, but I’ll be real I don’t know shit. Thought you might appreciate it. No idea what you’re planning on doing now that you’ve got an art degree, but I could get you her info if you want-”

“Olivia Bell?” Larissa interrupted, looking over at Snowy. “You’re friends with Olivia Bell?” 

“Yeah. You’ve heard of her?”

“Yeah, I- wait how do you know I was an art major, but not that my nickname is Lardo?” 

Snowy shrugged as he took the phone back. “You told me your name was Larissa at the bar, and you don’t have it listed on your Insta. I couldn’t remember what Jack had called you.” 

Larissa found her hand still held in place where the phone had been, held out in front of her as she tried to put his words in some order that made sense. “You follow me on Instagram? And-Wait, what bar?” But even as she asked the question, the only possible answer clicked into place. She had met Snowy before, a couple of times after games when they had gone to see Jack, but he had only come along to one Providence outing with them. They had gone to a bar down the street from Tater’s place, it had been a Tuesday when they hadn’t had a game and Larissa hadn’t made it back to Samwell until almost 2 in the morning. “O’Callaghan's? 

Snowy tilted his head again, narrowing his eyes even as he smiled. “Yeah?” 

“I...barely remembered you were there.” It was only partially the truth. He had showed up at least an hour after the rest of them had arrived, and despite her best efforts she had only spoken to him briefly, before Tater had demanded her attention back to him again. She couldn’t remember what she had been arguing with Tater about, but arguing with Tater was usually more about hearing him yell than it was actually what they were discussing. 

“Wow, rude. I followed you on Instagram and everything that night. For that, you don’t get the last hit.” 

She laughed as he turned away from her, taking one final hit before he snubbed it out on the deck between his feet. 

“Sorry, dude. All I remember from that night is Tater shouting at me about...I want to say shrimp?”

“That tracks, he yells about shrimp a lot. Like he yells about everything all of the time, but shrimp weirdly comes up semi-frequently.” 

The world was soft around the edges, the anxiety that had unexpectedly reared its ugly head in the middle of what should have been the biggest party of her life was waning, retreating back from whence it had come to bother her another night. Probably tomorrow, if history was anything to go by. It had only been a few hits, not enough for her to be quite out of her body just yet, but she still needed to take inventory of her limbs. She was only mildly surprised to find her arm had found its way across the gap between them and was draped over the arm of his chair. He didn’t seem to mind. 

“You know I tried to buy you a drink that night?”

"At the bar?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Snowy blew out a breath that ended in a laugh. When he turned away from her she could see the scruff that was spreading over his chin and down his neck. She wondered when he planned on shaving. 

“I asked Jack what you were drinking so I could get you another and he said, and I quote, ‘_Absolutely fucking not_’.” 

She tried, she really did, to contain her laughter, but she snorted again as she tried to cover her mouth as the feeling overtook her. “He fucking did not.”

“I swear on my fucking mother he did.”

“You obviously don’t give a shit about your mom, because I’ve known Jack Zimmermann for five years and no he didn’t.” 

Somehow her hand had wrapped around his bicep, clinging on like shaking him would make him admit the truth, but now that his hands were free he was gesturing wildly, eyes bright and smile wide as he pointed. “Fuck you, I love my mom, and yes he did! I tried to tell him I wasn’t trying to fuck his friend in the goddamn bathroom but he didn’t want to hear it. He bought your next round and told me I had to sit on Tater’s other side. Shit, like, even for a captain it’s weirdly like being scolded by your grandma.” 

Larissa had all but gotten her giggling back under control. She decided she would worry about being embarrassed by it tomorrow. Tonight she didn’t have time for that. “He is a grandma.” 

“Don’t I fucking know it.” His fingers were twitching where they were resting along his jeans, and she wondered if he wanted to keep smoking. 

The lights on the porch were already dim, and when the world suddenly grew darker she thought maybe someone had turned the lights out on them. It took a moment to put together that someone inside had switched off the lights. She had no idea of what time it was, but maybe the party was winding down. “Why did you try to buy me a drink.”

Snowy shrugged, and though she kept her eyes on his face, his gaze was locked on the skyline. “Jack showed us some of your art, thought it was cool. Then I met you,” he shrugged again, “thought you were cool.” 

“And I have a hot name. That’s important.”

Snowy nodded in concession. “And you have a hot name. Of course.” 

Larissa followed more hockey blogs than Bitty did, not that it was a competition, but she had double checked. She kept up with all the news, both legitimate and not so objective. Puck Bunny was a term she had despised ever since she had heard it five years ago, and it had never ceased to get under her skin and make her feel ill. The fact that she and Bitty had to concede and follow a few people who openly declared themselves as such still made her skin crawl. But she had to give to them, they seemed to know all the gossip before anyone else. 

Every single one had also had more than a few very poetic thoughts about Dustin Snow’s eyes. 

She had always thought it was ridiculously corny. Celebrity crushes were for preteen girls putting posters up in their lockers, not adult women trying to make a name for themselves. Or at least they weren't something those women admitted publicly. Especially not when you knew people who specifically knew that person. But maybe that last part only applied to her.

But Dustin Snow was not a name on the television screen right now. He was a real guy, who had shared a joint with her and was currently sitting close enough for her to still have her hand on his arm and he had wanted to buy her a drink. 

Despite her previous assessment of her sobriety she felt like she was out of body for a moment, though she doubted it had much to do with the weed. She saw herself, five years from now, ten years from now, looking back on the night that she partied with the Stanley Cup winning team. In that moment she realized she didn’t want to look back and say she had a panic attack about her nebulous future on the back deck and went home half way to stoned. 

She wanted to look back and say she did something ridiculously stupid. 

Before she could change her mind, before she could go down the list of why everything was a bad idea, she moved. Pulling herself up into a sitting position turned out to be more of an endeavor than she had anticipated, but she made it with only minimum difficulty.

“You heading back inside?”

Larissa ignored his question in favor of shifting herself over to perch on the edge of his chair. He shifted with her, moving just enough to let her join him, and she could see the muscles of his stomach jump when her hands found purchase on his shoulders, her thumbs tracing the dips on either side of his neck. She forced herself to look back into his eyes and found that bright impossible blue darker than it had been a moment ago. She hesitated for only a moment before the decision settled itself in her brain, no turning back. 

He was a gentler kisser than she had expected, if she had expected anything at all. His hands were light on her back, just barely there pressure as he let her take control of their mouths. Larissa tried to remember the last time she had kissed someone and not felt the tickle of a mustache, and decided at least for the night she liked the drag of stubble against her face just as much. Under her palms his bare skin was soft and warm and she could feel the beat of blood pumping just under her fingertips. 

When she felt the barest hint of tongue against her lips she pulled back, just enough to see the way his eyes were lidded and his mouth was wet and red. 

“You owe me a drink.” 

She could see the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed, but more importantly she could feel the movement against her hands. “Yeah.” His voice was raspy and quiet. “But Jack stopped me last time, and we are in his apartment. Don’t know how well that’s gonna go.” 

Lardo tilted her head, glancing back at the dark door behind them and pretending to consider their options. She saw a shadow move inside, but other than that it felt like they were alone. But feeling like you were alone and actually being alone were two very different situations, and she had learned that the hard way more than once.. “You got alcohol at your place?”

“Yes,” Snowy had barely let her finish before he was nodding, reaching up to stop his hat from falling off as it tilted too far to the side. “Yes, I do.” 

She laughed as she helped him put it back on. She leaned back in, close enough that he tried to tilt his face up to meet her, but she stopped short. Her heartbeat was in her throat, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders as another shadow passed by the door. “And what if all I want from your place is a drink?” It wasn’t, but that wasn’t important for him to know.

“Then I have a fucking nice ass guest room. Like you won’t even fucking believe. Or, I can call you the best Uber that’s still running at whatever the fuck o’clock it is. Your call.” She could feel his fingers winding through the tips of her hair. “We won’t do a second more of anything you don’t want to do.” 

The second time she kissed him, she didn’t pull away when he tried to deepen it. Absently she felt his hat hit her arm as it fell when she ran her hands through his hair. His hands were solid against her back, holding her against him and she thought he tasted like champagne, but as everything had been drenched in it earlier, maybe she was just imagining it. 

She was more out of breath than she wanted to make apparent when they broke apart again. “You need to find your fucking shirt.” 

Snowy nodded, and in one movement put his hat back on his head and lifted her off of him with his other arm. She stumbled at the sudden relocation, falling against his chest as she found herself standing.

“I’ll get a shirt, let’s go.” He laced their fingers together as he took a step towards the door, trying to pull her with him, but she held him steady. 

“Wait, Jack’s gonna try to stop us.”

Snowy rolled his eyes, giving another gentle tug of their joined hands. “Jack scored the winning goal and kissed his boy on live TV, trust me he is balls deep right now and will not care about us.”

She snorted again, had she always snorted this much when she laughed? “You’re fucking disgusting.”

“Is that a deal breaker?” He asked over his shoulder as he opened the door, dropping his voice low to try not to draw attention to them. 

She shook her head as she followed, though whether in admonishment or reassurance she wasn’t sure. Inside was darker than she had remembered, and she could see the lumbering forms of hockey players passed out on the couches and chairs and floor, though she couldn’t tell if it was her team or Snowy’s. Jack’s bedroom door was closed, and the only light in the room came from the TV, some comedy show laugh track playing on the screen. Snowy let go of her hand to swoop in close to the couch. 

As quietly as she could she moved behind him, gesturing at the kitchen as he glanced back at her. “I have to get something,” she whispered, and he seemed to accept it as he went back to the task at hand. Which turned out to be slapping a half awake Tater hard across the chest. 

“Ah, what?”

She turned the corner into the kitchen just as she heard the start of a whispered argument she couldn't make out.

When she had arrived hours earlier she had left her keys in the kitchen, dropped them on the counter as she was talking to Jack, and the only thing more embarrassing than being caught tonight would be having to sneak back in tomorrow to get them. 

She turned the corner as stealthily as she could, and spotted her keys laying on the counter next to the coffee mug tree. Creeping as stealthily as she could across the floor she failed to notice the refrigerator door was open until it was slammed shut. 

“Lardo!” Bitty gasped, his voice in a stage whisper that she was sure half the apartment could hear.

“Bits!” She whispered back, at what she thought was a much more reasonable volume. 

She froze, unable to find the words to explain herself even though there was nothing presently happening that she needed to hide. All she had to say was she needed her keys. Maybe it was the wide eyed stare of being caught that Bitty was giving back at her that made it hard to speak. 

“Are you...leaving?” 

“Yes,” she breathed out, her voice far too relieved to not be suspicious. “I just...need my keys.”

“You know you can just crash here. There’s a couch in the den that I don’t think anyone’s claimed yet.” 

Larissa pursed her lips as she tried to think of a fast excuse, exhaustion, weed and memory of Snowy’s skin beneath her fingers all occupying the parts of her brain that would usually take over things like ‘acting normal’ and ‘don’t be weird’. “I...just really would like to be in a bed tonight.”

“Are you going to take an Uber? Lardo, it’s over an hour back to Boston.” 

“I...got a hotel?” She couldn’t keep her face straight through what was quite possibly the worst lie she had ever told in her entire life. 

Bitty, in his absolute confusion over her bizarre behavior loosened his own defensive stance, and she finally saw what he was trying to keep behind his back. 

“What’s that?”

Bitty tensed again immediately, the can of whipped cream in his hand held out like a bomb. She half expected him to tell her it wasn’t his. 

“You...holding that for a friend?”

Bitty’s laugh was high and uncomfortable as his face slowly turned a shade closer to red. “It’s, uh, I thought I would have some pie.”

While the idea itself was pretty par for the course for Bitty, the obviousness of the lie was so staggering that for a moment she wasn’t sure how to respond. 

“I’m...pretty sure Tater ate it all. Dex tried to stop him but he-” She was spared both the confusion of trying to continue that response and of trying to continue to protect her own dignity when Snowy suddenly materialized behind her, one hand on her back. 

“Did you-Oh, hey, Bittle.”

Bitty blinked, eyes going impossibly even wider as he tried to hide the can behind his back again. “Hey, Snowy. What are you, uh, is that Tater’s shirt?”

Larissa twisted around to properly glance back at Snowy, and found him no longer shirtless. He was wearing a light blue Falcs training shirt that looked at least two sizes too big for him.

“Yeah.”

Larissa felt her face do a series of complicated movements that she wasn’t sure she could have recreated on her own if she tried. “How did you get Tater to give you his shirt?”

“I asked,” he told her like the answer was obvious.

She rolled her eyes, rubbing at her forehead to stop from throwing her hands in the air. “Okay, yeah, right.”

“Why do you have whipped cream?” Snowy challenged Bitty instead, and Larissa felt some of her own embarrassment lessen at the particular shade of red that Bitty turned as he examined the can again. 

“Uh...”

“He and Jack are gonna make a pie,” Larissa filled in his silence, shifting her eyebrows as obnoxiously as she could. 

Bitty brandished the can at her, pointing the tip at her face like he was going to spray her for her insolence, and for a moment she thought he was going to. 

“Oh a _pie_,” Snowy drew out the word, and she never thought it could sound so filthy. 

Bitty brandished the whipped cream can at him and he raised his hands in surrender. Snowy backed out of the kitchen, tilting his head in a clear instruction for her to follow as he disappeared down the hall.

“What are you two doing?” Bitty asked, brandishing the whipped cream with far less gusto than before back at her.

“Um-”

Bitty raised his eyebrows. “Is he taking you...to your hotel?”

Larissa tried to keep her face straight, but failed as she felt another laugh bubbling up. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s gonna walk me there. Snowy’s gonna walk me to the hotel room I definitely booked and you’re gonna make a pie with Jack as ass o’clock in the morning.” 

Bitty was biting his lip in a valiant attempt to not laugh. “Yep. Okay. You're going to a hotel and I'm gonna make a pie.” 

She covered her mouth with her hand as she and Bitty stared at one another, the absurdity of the situation growing more hilarious as the seconds ticked by. "We're a fucking team," was all she said when she was certain she wasn't going to wake the apartment with her laughter. 

Bitty nodded, and she was suddenly hit with such an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness that she had ever met Bitty, and a fullness in her heart that would have been humiliating to voice out loud so she reached out and squeezed his arm instead, hoping her got the idea. The closed lip smile he gave her in return told her he might have.

With another smirk she turned to head after Snowy, but was stopped by a hand on her arm. “Wait!” Bitty let go of her long enough to throw open the fridge door and pull something out. He was shoving something cold into her hand before she could stop him. His face was still red but his smile was wicked. “In case you guys wanna make a pie too.” 

She stared at the canister of whipped cream in her hands for a moment before she snorted, turning to laugh into her sleeve so she wouldn’t wake anyone else up. “Right. A pie. Okay, thanks.” 

She was halfway to the door, could see Snowy leaning against the frame waiting for her, before she turned back to whisper as loud as she could. “Don’t tell Jack,” before whipping around and rushing to catch up with Snowy.

As soon as the door closed behind them Snowy had one arm draped over her shoulders and she leaned against his side as they walked. He smelled like sweat and champagne and weed and the over powering cologne that Tater had been wearing ever since he had been benched. "God, when we get to your place you seriously need to shower before you make me a drink."

"I've showered like three times today," he challenged as they made it the elevators. 

She broke away from him to lean against the far wall as he hit the button for the lobby. "Yeah, and then you partied for six hours and stole Tater's shirt and now you smell like what I imagine a Russian prostitute smells like." 

Snowy raised his eyebrows at her as the doors shut. "A truly hot take on Tater's personal life choices honestly." 

Larissa gripped the bar behind her with one hand as Snowy moved in front of her, pressing her back against the wall as he crowded close. Both of his hands found the wall behind her, boxing her in and leaning down so they were almost nose to nose. She bit her lip to keep any expression she didn't want to show off of her face. "This isn't an Aerosmith video, dude, I don't know what you think is gonna happen." 

He breathed out a laugh before he leaned in, but while she titled her head up he ducked down, pressing his mouth against the delicate skin of her neck instead. The gasp she let out had not been part of her plan, but she couldn't stop herself from letting go of the bar, both hands coming up to grip at his shoulders as his teeth grazed her neck, working just under her ear.

"Ow, fuck." He pulled away just as quickly, leaning into her left hand to get away from her right. "What did you just hit me with?"

"Oh." Lardo held up the canister, caught between too many emotions all at once to properly sort them out. It might have been embarrassment or it might have been triumph, the two seemed very similar in the moment. "Bitty thought we might, uh, want to make a pie too." 

Snowy seemed at a loss for a moment, narrowing his eyes at the canister before glancing back at her, looking for more of an explanation. The cap was still on, but she pointed it at him like a weapon anyway. "But you shower first." 

Slowly, he seemed to come back online, his grin sliding back into place as he shook his head. When he spoke next his mouth was against her ear, his breath warm and his voice soft. "Anything you want." 

She turned her head to meet his mouth, more careful the second time to be gentler with the canister and not slam it into his back as she wound her arms around his neck. 

When the elevator doors finally opened, neither of them noticed.

**Author's Note:**

> Lardo is right, this is not an Aerosmith song and they will NOT be banging in an elevator. They probably will at Snowy's apartment though.
> 
> **  
**  
[Tumblr.](https://dexondefense.tumblr.com/)  



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